Posts tagged Utah

Ballot Watch: Mountain States

23
7 months ago
by Monotreme in

This is Bal­lot Watch. Today is the tenth in the series of arti­cles on the upcom­ing bal­lot ini­tia­tives and some key local elec­tions. In this arti­cle, we return to our geography-​​based col­lec­tions of states, taken roughly eight at a time. Along with the Moun­tain States of Col­orado, Idaho, Mon­tana, New Mex­ico, Utah and Wyoming, we’re includ­ing the north­ern Plains states of North and South Dakota.

For many years, this region has been reli­ably Repub­li­can. How­ever, demo­graphic changes have made some of the states a lot more inter­est­ing. New Mex­ico voted for the Repub­li­can from 1968 (Pres­i­dent Richard Nixon) to 1988 (Pres­i­dent George H. W. Bush). Since 1992 (Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton), how­ever, New Mex­ico has voted for the Demo­c­ra­tic Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, with a slight excur­sion to the red col­umn for Pres­i­dent George W. Bush’s reëlec­tion in 2004.

Col­orado was once solidly red in Pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. Since 1952 (Pres­i­dent Dwight Eisen­hower), Col­orado has voted for the Demo­c­ra­tic can­di­date for Pres­i­dent only three times: 1964 (Pres­i­dent Lyn­don John­son), 1992 and 2008 (Pres­i­dent Barack Obama). How­ever, chang­ing Demo-​​graphics have made Col­orado a swing state. Also, pop­u­la­tion growth has made it a medium-​​large prize: nine elec­toral votes. Look to Jef­fer­son County (Monotreme’s home) as the bell­wether county. This county includes the west­ern Den­ver sub­urbs, and like the state and the coun­try, is almost evenly split between Yangs and Kohms. Most of Jef­fer­son County (in terms of pop­u­la­tion) is in Colorado’s 7th Con­gres­sional Dis­trict (see below) with the less densely pop­u­lated moun­tain regions in the 2nd, which is a Safe Demo­c­ra­tic seat.

Idaho has voted for the Repub­li­can since the 1968 elec­tion. Mon­tana also turned red in 1968 and only voted for the Demo­c­rat in 1992. North and South Dakota have both voted for the Repub­li­can since Wen­dell Willkie lost to Pres­i­dent Franklin Roo­sevelt in 1940, with the excep­tion of giv­ing their eight elec­toral votes to John­son in 1964. Utah and Wyoming have an almost solid streak of vot­ing Repub­li­can in Pres­i­den­tial elec­tions as well, start­ing in 1952, but like many other West­ern states both took a brief walk on the blue side in 1964. (more…)

State of Play: Utah as a Red-​​State Bellwether

18
1 year ago
by Monotreme in

Map of Utah Coun­ties. Source: geol​ogy​.com

Demo­c­ra­tic and Repub­li­can state con­ven­tions were held in Utah Sat­ur­day, April 21. Each party chose can­di­dates for statewide and multi-​​county offices.

On the Demo­c­ra­tic side, things were pretty calm. The Democ­rats don’t hold much power in Utah pol­i­tics, and there were no major con­tro­ver­sies. I’ve been to past state Demo­c­ra­tic con­ven­tions, and the over­all air is like a high school pep rally for a los­ing team that every­one is com­pelled to attend. The Democ­rats only have one Con­gres­sional seat — more on that later — and have not been a sig­nif­i­cant force in state pol­i­tics since 1966. Cur­rently, the State Sen­ate has 22 Repub­li­cans and 7 Democ­rats, while the State House has 56 Repub­li­cans and 17 Democ­rats. All the Democ­rats are from the Salt Lake and nearby Park City areas, with the excep­tion of one lone Demo­c­ra­tic State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Chris­tine Watkins, who lives in Price, in the coal-​​mining east-​​central part of the state.

There is much more activ­ity on the Repub­li­can side. Remem­ber that in 2010, U.S. Sen­a­tor Bob Ben­nett was unable to make it past the sec­ond round of bal­lot­ing which sent now-​​Senator Mike Lee (R-​​UT) and Tim Bridge­wa­ter into the pri­mary, which Sen­a­tor Lee won.

Could the Tea Party repeat this feat in 2012, with Sen­a­tor Orrin Hatch (R-​​UT), who has served for 36 years?
(more…)

Ragegush Rebellion

203
1 year ago
by Monotreme in

Red-​​brown areas, about 60% of the state, are under Fed­eral con­trol. Source: State of Utah.

A long-​​simmering dis­pute between West­ern states and the Fed­eral Gov­ern­ment has come to the fore­front again in Utah, with House Joint Res­o­lu­tion 3 and House Bill 148. Both passed eas­ily and HB 148 is now on Gov­er­nor Gary Herbert’s desk, await­ing a sig­na­ture that is almost cer­tain.  Update: Gov­er­nor Her­bert signed HJR 3 and HB 148 on Fri­day, March 23, after this arti­cle was writ­ten but before it ran. When signed, it will trig­ger a legal bat­tle with the Fed­eral Gov­ern­ment which Utah is almost cer­tain to lose.

The Utah Leg­is­la­ture, like many state leg­is­la­tures, spends much of its pre­cious time in ses­sion on “mes­sage bills”, those des­tined not to ever go any­where but which rally the troops and per­haps make spon­sors look good in a reëlec­tion cam­paign, or per­haps in a cam­paign for a higher office.

Hav­ing already run through the stan­dard set of mes­sage bills for the usual con­ser­v­a­tive shib­bo­leths, Utah Leg­is­la­tors have turned to the Golden Oldies, reviv­ing a 40-​​year-​​old move­ment, the “Sage­brush Rebel­lion”.

In the orig­i­nal Sage­brush Rebel­lion, the con­flict between envi­ron­men­tal­ists, ranch­ers, min­ers, and off-​​road vehi­cle users, among oth­ers, boiled over after the 1976 Fed­eral Land Pol­icy and Man­age­ment Act was passed. This law, now Title 43 Chap­ter 35 of the U.S. Code, gave broad pow­ers to the Fed­eral Bureau of Land Man­age­ment (BLM) to con­trol Fed­eral lands in west­ern U.S. states. The states saw this as a Fed­eral land and power grab.

This year’s ver­sion, embod­ied by a suite of bills advanced by the over­whelm­ingly Repub­li­can Utah Leg­is­la­ture, demands that the Fed­eral gov­ern­ment return 30 mil­lion acres of Fed­eral lands to the State of Utah. There are 55 mil­lion acres of land in Utah, and 42 per­cent of them (22.9 mil­lion acres) are under BLM con­trol. Utah then promises to give back the National Parks and National Mon­u­ments, but not much else. The argu­ment is that money from the sale and use of the now-​​State lands would be used to pay for K-​​12 edu­ca­tion, which has been chron­i­cally under­funded. Utah has by far the high­est birth rate, largest pop­u­la­tions of chil­dren, and the largest class sizes of any state. Leg­isla­tive ana­lysts give the mea­sure zero chance of sur­viv­ing a Supreme Court chal­lenge. Thus, it’s more of a Rage­gush Rebel­lion. (more…)

The Freedom to Be Intolerant

14
1 year ago
by Logarchism.com in

Pauly sees fre­quent com­plaints from con­ser­v­a­tive com­menters on this site: he’s accused of pre­sid­ing over a “left-​​wing echo cham­ber” that airs only a liberal/​progressive/​Socialist world­view. So it is that Pauly won­ders if any of the lib­eral com­menters find this analy­sis offensive:

Rural res­i­dents are forced to become con­ser­v­a­tives and Fas­cists if they’re not that way from the out­set. That state­ment includes small farmhold­ers who typ­i­cally would oth­er­wise embrace a sense of belong­ing and com­mon pur­pose in other set­tings. Put the rural Kansas farmer in charge of pros­per­ity and growth and they’ll turn a sense of com­mu­nity into the Wild West fron­tier faster than you can say Dodge City — not because they’re intol­er­ant, but because their iso­lated rural world becomes the cen­ter of their uni­verse. Things like “free­dom” become so impor­tant to these farm­ers, and then that “free­dom” has to be defended at all costs (we need our guns!) and once defended, indi­vid­u­al­ism has to be aligned with the “vision” of the farm­ing community.

Now that Pauly has thor­oughly offended you, go read this com­men­tary and see how you feel about it.

Former Ambassador Jon Huntsman Announces Candidacy

24
1 year ago
by Monotreme in

Jon Hunts­man June 21, 2011; Ronald Rea­gan Sep­tem­ber 1, 1980. Top photo: Chang W. Lee, New York Times.

Jon Hunts­man for­mally kicked off his cam­paign today in New Jer­sey, in sight of the Statue of Lib­erty — which accord­ing to some is a reminder from the French not to embrace social­ism — evok­ing the spirit of Pres­i­dent Ronald Rea­gan as he announced his can­di­dacy for the 2012 Repub­li­can Party nom­i­na­tion for Pres­i­dent of the United States.

He invoked Rea­gan directly, say­ing that Rea­gan was a can­di­date in a sim­i­larly dif­fi­cult time in the nation’s history.

Politico’s Alexan­der Burns reports that he plans travel to New Hamp­shire later today, South Car­olina on Wednes­day, Orlando, Miami and Naples, Florida on Thurs­day, and Utah plus Nevada on Fri­day. He will set up his national cam­paign office in Orlando, home of his wife, Mary Kaye.

Huntsman’s can­di­dacy is con­sid­ered a long-​​shot. At this writ­ing, he is trad­ing at 12% on Intrade and has a 1.3% polling aver­age at Real Clear Pol­i­tics. Nate Sil­ver gives him odds of 25–1.

I don’t think you need to run down anyone’s rep­u­ta­tion to run for pres­i­dent. I respect my fel­low Repub­li­can can­di­dates. And I respect the pres­i­dent. He and I have a dif­fer­ence of opin­ion on how to help the coun­try we both love. But the ques­tion each of us wants the vot­ers to answer is who will be the bet­ter pres­i­dent, not who’s the bet­ter Amer­i­can. — Jon Hunts­man, in pre­pared remarks reported at Politico

The arti­cle below is an updated and reprinted ver­sion of one that appeared Feb­ru­ary 2, 2011. (more…)

Down the Hatch

9
1 year ago
by Logarchism.com in

It has been long-​​rumored in Utah that Sen. Orrin Hatch’s days are num­bered. In 1976, when he defeated then-​​Sen. Frank Moss who was at the time vying for a fourth term, he told Moss “eigh­teen years is long enough”. Appar­ently, 36 years is not as long as 18, or he for­got some­thing he promised along the way.

When the much more mod­er­ate (and respected) Sen. Bob Ben­nett was suc­cess­fully “pri­maried” (actu­ally “Repub­li­can State Con­ven­tioned”, which doesn’t have the same ring at all) Sen. Hatch saw the writ­ing on the wall.

Now, in a move that sur­prises no one, the ambi­tiously odi­ous Rep. Jason Chaf­fetz (R-​​Utah) has allowed reporters to openly spec­u­late that he’s run­ning for Sen. Hatch’s seat.

This being Utah, who­ever wins the nod at the Repub­li­can State Con­ven­tion (and any sub­se­quent pri­mary, if needed) will be one of the two the Sen­a­tors from Utah.

So far, Rep. Chaf­fetz has two claims to fame:

What will hap­pen next? Only the Platy­pus knows.

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